Scrambled!

8 days after purchasing the two Warren chickens, a perfect pale brown egg with darker speckles appeared in the hen house. I was suprised how impressed I was. Chickens don't lay if they are stressed or ill, so I was pleased that we had provided the correct environment for a chicken to be happy enough to want to lay an egg. I have my suspicions that it was Cicero as she is the healthiest looking of the two warrens, and until recently Beatty was occasionally sick. Since the first egg, Cicero has been providing us with an egg a day without fail. That was 3 weeks ago, and today Matt went to the hen house after work, and there were two eggs in there. After some probiotic yoghurt, cider apple vinegar and chicken spice, and more likely some more time to get over her moult, Beatty has started laying also. She also looks like she is back to normal health.

I have learnt how impatient me and Matt are, we haven't been off the internet trying to find out why Beatty wasn't laying and why she was sick etc. Now that both Warrens are laying, we can relax. I have discovered that the other two hybrids are still very young, and can start laying between 18 and 30 weeks old. As they are only 19 weeks at the moment, we could be in for a long wait. But at least the bullying has pretty much stopped, and all four are getting along much better now.

Things at the allotment are not going so well. I was going to go on Bank Holiday weekend, but the weather was bad, so I missed out. Last weekend, I took some courgette plants thinking I could plant them and then go again. Instead I was met with tall grasses up to chest height all over the allotment. The onions still looked strong, althought they needed weeding. The potatoes could barely be seen for the weeds. I started work on weeding the potatoes, but I had to use a trowel to get the roots out, and ended up damaging some of the potatoes in doing so. The allotment looked almost as if we hadn't done any work over the last six months, and with all the other stuff I have going on with working and study etc, I felt like this year was going to be a right off like last year.

However, despite the problems with the veg I had planted, the rest of the allotment was taking care of itself. The apple trees are all full of fruit, the gooseberry plant is doing great and the fruit is nearly ready for picking. I also have a new favourite plant - I dug up a blackberry plant from the old allotment as well as some raspberry plants and put them into a bag with the intention of planting them at the new allotment in the spring. Spring has turned into summer almost, and there is still no room for planting due to the pile of dead brambles. But still my blackcurrent plant has produced at least a dozen fruits. Not bad going to hardly any soil and no room for root growth!

Our next project begins this weekend. Matt ordered a home brewing starter kit, and we are going to pick some rhubarb from the allotment tomorrow. Watch this space...

photos courtesy of Broken Fence Photography. www.redbubble.com (search salmonmattus)

The Chickens Have Landed!

The next stage of our self sufficiency, good life master plan, is chickens. This has been on the slow burner since before christmas, and started with a chicken keeping course at Stonebridge City Farm.

It then took us til this long to sort out buying some sort of house for them and build a run.

Finally though, two Warrens (Beatty and Cicero), a black star (Pam) and a Columbine (Oona) arrived in our garden. We bought the Warrens first and after a couple of days went to collect the other two. The two Warrens are in the picture on the left. The other two are in the photos below.

I thought it would all be straight forward from then on. Feeding, cleaning out, and collecting eggs. Oh, no! The Warrens are about 6 months older than the other two and chased them onto the roof of the hen house, where they stayed for a couple of days - I did grab them and put them into the house at night. Gradually they began to get braver, and hungrier but were still chased about by Beatty. Me and Matt decided to intervene, and extended the run and put more feed bowls around, so that the bullying Warrens couldn't guard all the food. It seems to have helped, and they are getting along a bit better now. Next problem - no eggs. The two Warrens are moulting, and chickens don't lay when in moult. The other two are a little too young to be laying yet.

On a brighter note, our cat Smiley got bored of them after one evening, and has wondered past them in the garden without raising a claw! Out Staffy Beth is a little more excited by them, but has figured out that she can't get to them when they are in the run and leaves them alone. However, if the chickens are loose in the garden, Beth is not!

They are also very relaxing to watch, scratching about on the ground. And they are every allotmenteers dream, I threw a slug in front on one the other day and it was gobbled up straight away!

Next time at the allotment, I will be collecting slugs, bugs and dandelion leaves to bring home for them!

I might try them on sticky weed tonight, even if they don't eat it, it will be funny to see them wandering around with sticky weed on them!

So much to do, so little time...

I know, I am a bad blogger. Despite all my promises about blogging more regularly on my new blog, I have slipped into old habits. They really do die hard!

It's not that I haven't been working away, I've just been too busy to write.

Life on the road to self sufficiency has been good, as you can see by the photo. Well truthfully I haven't had much to do with any of the produce in the photo, but still the frugal life is all about sharing and taking part!

Two weeks ago, I took part in a brewing day at Stonebridge City Farm. The Saturday consisted of Nettle Beer, and the Sunday that me and Matt went along to was about using other items from hedgerows and verges to make some home brew. We decided on Hawthorn Blossom wine. A week later, some of the nettle beer was going spare, and as we had taken part on the Sunday, we were offered some nettle beer. The only thing we could find to put it in to transport it home was a plastic bucket with a lid. Needless to say, my car now smells of nettle beer! However, I did manage to save enough to fill two two litre water bottles. I only have another week to wait until it is ready for drinking.

In front of the nettle beer, is a couple of jars of curried onion chutney, and three jars of rhubarb and vanilla jam. All of this was made by Matt, who has suddenly really got into all this growing, preserving, brewing idea. I think it was the brewing, that sparked his interst personally! Either way, it is great to have some more enthusiasm and planning input at the allotment and home.

Speaking of the allotment, we now have a shed. We had to carry it from the main gates ourselves in the pouring rain, but after a struggle to nail a warped roof on and a trip to Wickes to change the damaged roofing felt, there is now a wodden shed at the back of the allotment. No more dragging lots of tools back and forth to the car each time I go.

Before the shed arrived, I did a bit of weeding in the onion bed, they all seem to be doing well, although the garlic hasn't grown quite as much as it should. I think this might have been due to the dry spell we had before, as garlic tends to prefer lots of water. In the potato bed, things aren't quite as good. A number of plants have got brown dead leaves, I feared it might be potato blight so dug out my vege books and had a look. I didn't take any photo's but it appears that another likely cause if frost damage. A friend mentioned there had been  a frost a couple of weeks ago, so I am hoping it is that, rather than potato blight.

It's Alive...part 2

OK, I think I have this sussed now.

Finally, I have a photo of the full allotment, as it was when we had chopped all the brambles down.

At the end of the allotment, is a train track, so regular commuters will be able to keep an eye on our progress! To the left is another allotment and then a row of houses, and to the right is a long line of other allotments. A few allotments down, houses some racing pigeons, which we regularly see flying in a figure of 8 over the neighbouring allotments. It is quite funny to see the difference between these pigeons that live on proper food and fly long distances, and the fat lumps that live on discarded burgers and fag buts. Hmmm, a bit like our society in minature, now I think about it!

Anyway back to planting, as well as the potatoes previously mentioned, I have planted some asparagus in it's own little bed near the apple trees, and onions, shallots and garlic in a bed next to the potatoes.

This friendly little Robin appeared whilst I was digging a space for the asparagus, and was so brave he nearly got squished under a spade full of soil. He had a friend with him, but the friend was too quick for my little digital camera - he would only fly in, land and immediately fly out again. This one however, was happy to pose, and I managed to get three or four good photos.

Next on the agenda is to get rid of all the brambles we chopped down. As our allotment is next to houses, we aren't allowed fires, so next weekend, we are hiring a wood chipper. Finally the three big piles of dead brambles will be turned into something much more useful like wood chip for paths. As they have been there a few months now though, I am worried we may be making a few friendly little critters homeless.

As I have been to the allotment three weekends in a row, I have decided to give myself a break and do some work in our long neglected back garden. I can barely see the plants for the long grass and weeds, and I need to cut some dandelion heads before the yellow flowers go and they send seeds everywhere.

It's Alive!!

I went to the allotment a couple of weeks ago and found things growing! Not just weeds either, the apple trees have little buds all over them, the gooseberry plants has lovely new green leaves on it, and even the raspberry plants which I brought from the old allotment and have yet to plant, have shoots on them.

But mostly I was please to see these...
I love daffodils, they are one of the first signs of spring and add colour not just to the tills at Tesco, but grass verges all over the city in places where they are forgotten about for the rest of the year. I am slowly adding them to pots at home and the allotment to add a bit of colour. These however, were already at the allotment, and have probably been adding colour year after year, with just the sparrows and robins to enjoy them.

Since my first trip a couple of weeks ago, I felt much more motivated. This lead to digging and planting, and finally the allotment is beginning to look like an allotment instead of a field of carpet and weeds.

I have planted a bed of potatoes, both earlies - Pentland Javelin, and main crop - Pink Fir Apple. I had some Pink Fir Apple potatoes in a veggie box before my allotment days, and love their weird shape and lovely taste, so for the past two years I have grown them. I didn't do too well with them last year, but then I neglected the allotment last year and everything got swamped by weeds.

After a shakey start, Matt has now got the allotment bug as well - its a lot more peaceful than our back garden and not so overlooked! In fact the weather was so good on Saturday - we even took the dog, Beth, so she could have a good sunbathe.

That will have to be all for now, as the website has decided I can't upload anymore photo's, as usual an improved website makes it harder to do previously easy tasks!

From small seeds

I haven't actually made it to the allotment for the past few weeks, but it doesn't mean I haven't been growing things!

I have been making my little newspaper plant pots, and putting seeds into my cosy propogator in the spare bedroom. I planted two types of tomato, a couple of pots of salad, any herbs I could find (basil, coriander), and some sweet peas. Sainsbury's magazine inspired me to plant the sweet peas. In the old allotment, a bit of colour got overlooked in the quest to grow vegies!

My mushrooms are half way through the growing process, and have now been put into a dark cupboard. At the moment, they are still just compost with a tiny bit of white mouldy stuff here and there. I am not holding out much hope. Although some people must be able to grow them, otherwise I wouldn't see them in all the garden centres!

This weekend, I am hoping to get to the allotment, if only for an hour, but we will have to see how that goes!

I am also going to put in a petition for more hours in the day, actually more days in the week. If I could have another day in the weekend, I could designate that for the allotment and still have enough hours to do work and other hobbies. And maybe flexible working as well, so if it was good weather on a Wednesday, I could use that as my allotment day, and go to work at the weekend, when it is likely to be raining!

New Beginnings

Last year was pretty rubbish on all accounts in my world of gardening, so when I heard that I would be sharing a new allotment with my brother, I decided a new allotment should have a new blog. One that I would maybe update a little more often!

Also, the whole sustainable, make your own outlook has been spreading from growing our own veg to making my own jewellery, and hopefully soon, having our own free range eggs straight from our own back yard. So this new blog will cover all of the above, and any new ideas I have in 2011.

The new allotment became ours in August, but it was a mass of brambles and weeds. Currently, nearly all of the brambles have been strimmed, and are now in a big pile! They are going to be chipped soon and used for paths. The next problem, is that whoever had the allotment before us - at least 2 years ago, covered the whole place with carpet, layers and layers of carpet.

In the meantime, not wanting to get behind, I have planted some overwintering onions at home in small pots and will transplant them once a bed has been dug at the allotment. I have also bought some potatoes, and they are chitting at home. In the next couple of weeks or so, I am going to put some seeds in a propagator so that I can make a start on tomatoes, chillies and any other seeds I find in my stash.


Today I have been busy creating. I made some jam with a small amount of the blackberries I managed to harvest from the allotment before the strimming began.

I made the jam in the breadmaker, so while it was cooking away, I also managed to make a couple of pairs of earings and a pendant. To build up my stocks of beads and get new ideas, I searched through old jewellery that I don't wear anymore and found a bracelets with red wooden beads, I managed to re use the beads on a wire heart shape I made.

Back to the veggies, I had some garden centre vouchers for Christmas so went on a little shopping spree earlier in the month. I decided to try two new things, mushrooms and asparagus. I am not sure the mushrooms will work, as I spoke to a couple of people who said they have never managed to grow them successfully. It was an easy grow pack though, where all I have to do is put some water on them, we will see!

The only reason I decided to try the asparagus, was that the pack said to leave it to grow this year, then just pick a few spears next year, then pick as many as you want the year after. I know it is just a nicer way of saying leave it for three years before harvesting, but just being able to try some next year, made me feel better about having to wait too long!

The blackberries weren't the only thing I managed to harvest from the new allotment, despite there being no beds dug. There are three apple trees and a gooseberry bush that were planted by the previous owner. Only two of the apple trees currently fruit, one is an eater and produced a handful of small tasty apples. The other is a cooker, and produced bags and bags of lovely cooking apples - more than we possibly knew what to do with, unless we bought an apple press that is ;-) Unfortunately a large number ended up on the floor, and then in my composter, but there were at least a couple of apple crumbles over winter!

So this year, I have an allotment which is a blank canvas, no greenhouse, no brick building that is about to fall down, and no pressure to provide veg to the owner of the allotment. All the veg is for me to make chutneys, and soups and tomato ketchup, and any other way I can think of storing and using veg so that they don't go to waste!